On a very wet day at the end of January, Colin Marshall interviewed me in a Winchester bar for his excellent series of podcasts, Notebook on Cities and Culture. We talked for about an hour about our experiences of cities from Tokyo to Munich, about the differences between cities, about how they are built and how we experience them, about the city of non-places and the city of crime, and many other subjects.

Today, for the first time in history more than half the population of the planet live in cities. Two hundred years ago, just three per cent were city dwellers, but by 2050, 75 per cent will be urbanites. City is the ultimate guidebook for our urban age, taking the reader on a journey through the past, present and future of the world's cities. Illustrated throughout and with essays on everything from Ellis Island and Eco-cities, to Street Food and Tahrir Square, this is a fascinating celebration of our greatest creation – the city. More